Saturday, 27 October 2007

The decorum of the square is maintained by the comparative simplicity of the structures which surround it. The edges are lined by three-storeyd buildings, arcaded on the southern side, unremarkable but dignified in proportion. Against this background of largely private structures, then, the monumental buildings are individually treated. Santa Maria Assunta is distinguished by its facade clad in pink and white marble, and the presence of its tall campanile. The Palazzo della Ragione sits almost as a pavilion moored at the eastern end of the square, the wide spacing of its six bay colonnade and its comparatively low eaves line distinguishing it from its context. Finally, the Palazzo Ducale dominates the square, as its patron Vespasiano no doubt intended. Its scale is grander than its context, with five bays, two large storeys and crowned by a central tower which rises from the pyramidal roof. A short flight of steps raises the level of the spacious ground floor arcade, which is faced in rusticated stone work. Above, the stucco of the facade is pierced by five framed and pedimented windows, the central one emphasised by a shallow balcony, from where the duke could address his subjects. The foregoing description suggests that Sabbioneta is entirely conventional in its layout as the seat of power of a minor autocrat. What is unusual is its completeness and its date, which places it as contemporaneous with the influence of renaissance urban theorists. The piazza roughly accords with the double square proportion recommended by Alberti. In so far as this scale of application of architectural instruction tends towards the pragmatic, the theoretical origins of the planning of Sabbioneta are perhaps more closely related to the connections between theatrical and urban design outlined by Serlio, and the last structure to be completed during Vespasiano’s life was the theatre, designed by Scamozzi.

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

Successive Venetian administrations sought to enhance the physical majesty of Piazza San Marco, beginning with the construction of the Clock Tower in the 1490s to designs attributed to Mauro Codussi (d. 1504). This structure, in the latest classical manner, made a terminus both for the view from the entry point to the city and was a triumphal ornament to the densely packed route through the city to the Rialto.

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Eamonn Canniffe leads the Architecture Research Centre and the MA in Architecture + Urbanism at the Manchester School of Architecture. He was educated in Architecture at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. In 1996 he held a Rome Scholarship in the Fine Arts at the British School at Rome. Between 1986 and 1998 he taught at the University of Manchester School of Architecture, and between 1998 and 2006 at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. He is the author of Urban Ethic: Design in the Contemporary City (Routledge 2006) (Chinese edition 城市伦理--当代城市设计 2013) and The Politics of the Piazza: the history and meaning of the Italian square (Ashgate 2008). He is co-author (with Tom Jefferies) of Manchester Architecture Guide (1999) and (with Peter Blundell Jones) of Modern Architecture through Case Studies 1945-1990 (Architectural Press 2007), (Chinese edition 现代建筑的演变 1945--1990年 2009) (Spanish edition Modelos de la Arquitectura Moderna -Volumen II 1945-1990 2013). For a number of years he has served as Architecture Series Editor for Ashgate Publishing.